Thirteen
by Rhianna L'Ebhra
Summary: You are broken, alone, but this pact of yours makes you feel alive.


**I do not own Drakengard. I wish I did, but...I'm glad I don't.**

* * *

><p>You are shackled down in the courtyard, wounded and bleeding and angry at the world that you can feel slowly slipping away from you. Your wings flicker once more against the chains that bind you, the weak attempt enraging you even more in its futility than the fact that you are bound.<p>

You snarl when footsteps approach, and your teeth snap together in a false display of power. A human stands before you, and you want only to rise from your restraints and end its pitiful life before it makes well on the opportunity to plunge its sword into your heart.

When the human-the miserable, foolish, _weak_ human-demands a pact with you, you almost roar your laughter to the skies. It does not wait for your answer before it takes its sword to the others of its kind, and you wonder in some small corner of your mind if it is trying to impress you.

It almost works, but then you realize that you could have finished _all_ these pitiful mortals in a quarter of the time it is taking the brown-haired human, and a snarl curls your scaled lips away from your teeth.

When the blood of its enemies bathes the courtyard red, the human turns back to you and demands an answer yet again. You yearn for freedom, and you accept.

It climbs onto your back and orders you into the air, and you bare your teeth in all their draconic glory. You will make the mortals _burn_.

And if this human will help you, you may decide to make its death a painless one.

* * *

><p>You let hellfire pour out your mouth, burning to ash all that stand in your way. You feel your pact-partner's black joy at the massacre, and you can almost see the depraved grin on its face. You know your eyes have that same maddening look as the pitiful Empire dogs roast in their own armor.<p>

Your pact-partner jumps from your back and draws its sword, lunging and slashing and altogether making the wholesale slaughter of its enemies just a bit too fanciful for your tastes. You hiss out a stream of brimstone-fire at the oncoming horde, roaring your mastery to the blood-dark skies above.

This is _freedom_. This is _life_.

You muse that your pact-partner may have the right idea in killing as many as possible, and after taking a moment to huff some tendrils of fire out your slitted nostrils at the burned lumps of flesh that were once enemies, you take to the skies and follow it, picking off any stragglers it missed.

It does not occur to you until later that it may be starting to grow on you. Strangely, the idea does not unsettle you as much as you thought it would.

* * *

><p>Your wings beat lazily against the air, letting the wind currents carry you through southern Drakengard to your destination in the Desert of the Seal. Your pact-partner rests in his usual spot in between your shoulder-blades, just below the junction of your nape and shoulders. He is sharpening his most recent weapon, a huge sword that makes all the other longswords he carries look as mere twigs. You tell him so, and he smiles his unhinged smile at you, telling you in the mental language of pact-partners that it is for that exact reason that it is his new favorite weapon.<p>

You have grown to look forward to that smile-it usually means killing, blood and death and fire and iron. It means vindictive justification against those who chained you to the ground of his castle-_you_, a creature of air and fire, an almost-god. It means _freedom_, and you crave that last more than anything else.

Freedom, and company. You have been alone for centuries, and now you are alone no longer. You have a pact-partner, and the two of you are embroiled in the war that will write history.

You have _him_, and he has _you_, and perhaps that is not such a bad thing after all.

* * *

><p>Your skin stretches and fluctuates, and your scales rattle across its leathery surface as more scales grow in, darker and thicker to protect you from whatever dangers are sure to lie ahead. You tilt your head back and roar, and it feels <em>right<em>. Caim smiles and strokes your newly-transformed snout, and you huff warm air at him in a grudging token of acceptance of the still unaccustomed-to action. The hierarch urges you both to hurry, and you narrow a cat's-slit eye at him. He silences himself and withdraws, even as the elf woman steps up to take his place and stare at you curiously, before quickly losing interest and meandering off in the general direction of camp.

You lift yourself off the ground with the help of your newly-transformed wings and coast back to camp, keeping an eye on Caim as he follows below.

You like this life you have made for yourself, and the concept of any of it ending badly is something you do not consider.

* * *

><p>You race toward the Sky Fortress, your wings beating against the air current your black litter-brother leaves in his wake and the wake of that red-haired fool. Caim holds tightly onto your neck, and you promise yourself that you will help him in this in any way that you can, even if it means breaking your pact and becoming two again.<p>

Even if it means giving up your freedom.

* * *

><p>You call out to Caim, but he does not answer. You know he is <em>alive<em>, for otherwise you would not be-and that is what worries you so. He is not one to idle. _Why will he not answer?_

And then you _know_. The Goddess, his sister, the last seal, is dead.

And the world crumbles around you all.

* * *

><p>You land in the ruins of the Imperial Capital, the girl-priestess half-conscious, full-mad at your feet. The hierarch bemoans the broken seals, the doomed world, everything he can. You wish he would be silent, and you know your Caim wishes the same.<p>

And in that instant, you understand why everything happened as it did.

You offer to become the goddess seal, because that is how it is meant to be.

As the runes burn themselves onto you and your soul is branded for eternity, you feel your Caim's hand resting on your snout.

You smile, for you have found freedom.


End file.
